Quantum Sheaf I
by ArgentKnight
Summary: A scientist at something resembling U.C. Berkeley discovers a way to do what we all wanted to do anyway...


_Dear fellow JD-FF'ers:_

_Other than a bit of Beta-editing for a few writers, this was my first attempt at fan fiction to be read by others. It was initially sent to the Talking Points group, so those of you who read it there will find it familiar, but I hope a bit improved._

The usual stuff…

_Disclaimers – Dear Aaron, John and Script writers I do not claim your characters and words, (which are here in profusion), as my own, but I object to some of what you did with them, so here are my answers to that._

_A/N #1: I owe most of this to Sharon who persuaded me to actually put pixels on disk, plus H. Beam Piper, Robert A. Heinlein, and Quantum Leap – the first two gave me concepts and the latter a story-telling mechanism (though I rather modified it) - there's a Rudyard Kipling quote lurking in chapter 2, also there's a line that I just plain ripped- off from__ Top Gun __in chapter 5 and a WHO song quote from __Tommy__ in 8. _

_Finally, thanks to Anne Marie and Cathy and those who read the sample, for not blatantly holding their noses where I could see them doing it._

_A/N 2: The first two chapters are both rather technical (the science in chapter 1, to the best of my understanding is correct) but they do not involve Josh and Donna at all… they are stage-setting for the rest, which does deeply involve TWW __**– if you don't like Science Fiction or physics, you can skip over them until the J&D/TWW chapters start - with #3... I'm posting the first three in a row to launch this**__._

_Many thanks to Kathy H. for allowing me help keep our genre alive._

**QUANTUM SHEAF, EPISODES 1-3 – ****THEORY AND PRACTICE**

**CHAPTER 1 - ****The Lecture**

Pete was wrapping-up this afternoon's Freshman Honors-class lecture in advanced physics with a Q&A session.

"Professor, can you explain Quantum Mechanics in Freshman English, without the math?"

"OK Jack, I'll try…"

"At the quantum mechanics level, all theories postulate that there must be a myriad of universes."

"As you all know, one of the basic things about classic Newtonian – Einstein-ian physics is that you can only know either where a particle is located and its rest-mass or its direction of motion and velocity, but not both pairs. This is usually lumped together as the 'Observer Effect' - in freshman English that translates as; 'The act of being observed (measured) affects the thing being observed.' What is often not stated is the corollary that the act of observing also changes the observer. You will often hear the term 'entangled' – the observed and the observer are connected… Let's call that item #1...

"…which leads us to another related bit of theory - the' Uncertainty Principle' - which states that until a particle is observed, it exists in a state of indeterminacy – its mass, location, velocity and direction can be only be stated as approximations within certain statistically defined limits based on prior observations of similar particles and knowledge of physical laws.

The famous Schrödinger's Cat, thought-experiment illustrates this. You place an animal in a hermetically sealed opaque box with no external instrumentation, containing an internal device; which will administer an instantly lethal poison to the animal – randomly, exactly half the time and will not be able to do so the other half. After the device's set time elapses - until the box is opened and someone looks in, the animal exists in a state of uncertainty, neither alive nor dead as far as anyone knows. The act of observing 'collapses' the uncertain state into fixed reality, the act of being observed affects both the animal, and also the observer (who gains information and is also faced with deciding what to do with either an angry animal or its corpse half of the time). Let's call that item #2.

I should also point out that nothing 'real' happens in isolation - If Schroedinger's thought experiment were really attempted, there are many things that could spoil it – the cat could escape, the experimenter could use the wrong poison, the timer might be set wrong, an earthquake could destroy the lab and a myriad of other things could happen. Murphy's law is a fact of quantum reality.

Pete continued. "The final bit of quantum theory which applies to the discussion is the theoretical concept that every binary quantum level event, when collapsed into a state of fixed reality, actually splits off TWO world-lines - one in which each outcome is the 'determined one' - resulting in a high-order infinite sheaf of parallel alternate realities.

Now you can take this bit of theory straight – postulating an infinity with room to encompass all the realities formed by each and every quantum-level event; or you can take it on-the-rocks – where, just as quantum effects at the atomic particle level usually only affect the observer's macro-view of physical events when taken in the large aggregate, the same is true across the world-lines, requiring a somewhat lesser order of infinity - remember that the state of the cat tells you nothing about whether the lethal device actually functioned properly. I put it to you that the latter concept has more intellectual appeal. In the macro view - Which particular molecule of H2O is energized first, matters not a whit until the entire liter of water in the pot on the stove boils and you can make tea…"

Our own thought-experiment here perhaps spawned a huge sheaf of 'new' alternate worlds - did every electro-chemical event in our bodies alter our future or does reality have a bit more inertia to overcome and how can we ever know? Have you been taking notes? There will be a quiz next period…" He grinned… "Just kidding, no quiz... I won't leave you in a state of indeterminacy." And walked off smirking, because he just had left them wondering if there might really be a quiz sometime…

**~*~On the stage behind the lectern~*~**

As he ended his class, Pete sighted his colleague waving from the wings and looking extremely excited.

As the students departed, he walked over, "Cherie what's up?"

"The hamster came back alive!"

"Holy shit! Do we have any indication what set of postulates is correct?"

He nearly swallowed his tongue when she looked him in the eyes and asked. "Did you ever read Heinlein's novels from NUMBER OF THE BEAST? Onward?"

Pete reached for her and held her face solidly between his palms and looked directly into her eyes, "The 'ficton concept' is accurate? – The act of imagining a world by a sentient mind allows any other mind to find it in quantum reality? The more sentient beings who read, watch or whatever and imagine what they would do there, splits more related realities off?

"You spoke to your class minutes ago about the Observer Effect… but Heisenburg got it a bit backwards, maybe we can call it the Imaginer effect - our device has settled the matter – there IS a highest detectable order of infinity as far as we know, and contains all imaginable possibilities in N-dimensional space… Somewhere 'OUT THERE' is an infinitely large sheaf of Disney fictons and THEY are one microscopic bit of total reality and L. Frank Baum, the Brothers Grim and Hans Christian Anderson sheaves are of the same order… I think Heinlein's is possibly of a greater order because at least half of Science Fiction is based on his story-telling… AND that's just using our Earth-human English-speaking world-line as a starting place."

"Yech! That means there's another infinite realm of Hells… People are very creative when it comes to punishment."

_A/N – Take that Free- Ride! (but I haven't written it yet - muah ha ha!) – Think how weird it is to want to take vengeance upon and threaten a fictional villain... who was never seen onscreen. Quantum reality will really bend your mind._

**CHAPTER 2 - ****THE LAB****  
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_A/N - question for the class, what is the Rudyard Kipling quote and from which story does it come… hint - it is only a short phrase?_

**~*~**_**Next morning in the lab**_**~*~**

Pete asked his team, "So we're sure that the apparatus can project living mammals into another reality and return them without any apparent physical harm? Do we have any idea what the people in the alternative reality will perceive?"

Cherie answered for all of them, "We built a para-time transportation device, not a hamster mind-reader." So... do we get a monkey or a chimp next or what?"

"Fair point," Pete continued… "Do we have a volunteer with an above room-temperature cognition score to run and go see on the next trial?"

It took only one look for Pete to see that a live hamster was not enough of a confidence-builder for any of the team to be willing to shift realities.

"OK, I'll go then, but we need a set of experimental parameters…"

Geoffrey ventured: "It should be something from our world's movies or TV so we can match the volunteer's perceptions to our recorded fiction."

Jim tossed in – "don't forget our history here and on the alternate time-line too. We do not want to mess with written history – the true test as Geoff implied is changing what we consider a fictional reality."

Cherie chimed in - "and it should be a story with a high level of disagreement about where the plot line should have changed – I mean really, when and why did Rick give up Ilsa in Casablanca?"

Sue added immediately, "and we need to focus on only one character – NO! better-yet, one character-pair's interactive plot line."

Pete decided – "Ok gang, since I'm the volunteer, it is going to be THE WEST WING… we launch tomorrow, make sure all the fail-safes are set and functioning and the device is working correctly. I need to fix events in our and their realities in my mind. Good evening," And he left to reread some history texts and watch DVDs at home.

The following morning, just after 08:00, the team gathered in the lab. The first thing Pete did was to call his old friend and classmate Mark, who runs the research reactor in the basement of the nuke lab just off campus. "Mark, do you have any scheduled power demands today?

"Not until this evening when the twin cyclotrons up the hill are scheduled for a low-power proton collision alignment test."

"Great! Put my lab on the schedule for a one-hour, full-power run at"… he looked over at Cherie, who held up all of her fingers "…ten a.m. today."

You have it Pete, we'll start running up to full power at 09:30 and you will have the full fifty megawatts to your lab by ten.

Once everybody hears that on speaker, they scatter to their areas – Geoff brings all of the telemetry online, Cherie initializes and calibrates the actual transposition chamber on standard kilowatt-level utility line-power, Jim makes sure that the control program is running on the computer and it is synched to 'launch' as soon after 10:00 a.m. as the power and subject-presence sensors give it a 'GO' signal, Sue does her usual superb job of double-checking and orchestrating everyone else as well as monitoring Pete's vital signs and life-support.

Seeing that the team is totally in control and that almost all of the indicator lights are green, Pete walks into the projection chamber and seats himself and concentrates on the show. Eventually he hears Sue counting down, "Full power is online, all systems are up and running, we have green indicators across the board… five, four, three, two, one, ze…

_The quote was from Rudyard Kipling's __Rikki Tikki Tavi__ – it's in the third paragraph – "_run and go see" – the mongoose's creed.

_Welcome ye hardcore J&D fans who don't need or want science to get in the way of your needs._

_A/N – I decided that the "Quantum Leap" model worked just fine as a story-telling mechanism - except the out of control "repeat-leap' aspect __and__ (at least so far) the 'phantom sidekick/advisor._

**CHAPTER 3 – Hiring an Assistant**

~*~ Bartlet For America Campaign office ~*~

I look up from my desk and see our political strategist walking through campaign headquarters, followed closely by a stunningly beautiful tall, slim, young, blonde woman who is conversing with him at light speed… No, not conversing - make that something between arguing and pleading.

Despite my calculated public air of indifference, I can't help listening-in to their conversation, until the question of – 'who am I?' Pops-up in my brain. I look down at the nameplate on my desk TOBY ZEIGLER it says… I look up and catch my reflection in the window glass – I sure look like Richard Schiff… so where did *my* body go?

Oh well, I get up and follow Josh and whoever she is (even though I-Pete know she's Donna Moss, Toby doesn't) through the office and I cannot help but be impressed by her management of the course of their walk-and-talk and the obvious instant chemistry between them…

"…I think you'll find me valuable."

I watch while Josh loops his ID badge around her neck. As he leaves his broom-closet office, I take Toby's body over, catch Josh and pull him aside

"Josh, hold onto that young woman any way possible… she's correct, you will value her more than anyone, in the entire course of your life, except maybe your family." Josh gives me a look; which tells me he heard what I had to say, turns on his heel and goes back into his office.

As I turn away to go back to my desk I hear him say, "Ms. Moss, would you like to have dinner with me tonight..."

I quietly turn back and eavesdrop on their conversation.

"I have no objection Mr. Lyman… but why?"

"It's 'Josh' OK, and it is going to be several weeks before I can get you on the payroll, and you are the best thing that ever happened to me – I can see my desk for the first time since I joined the campaign. The least I can do is feed you and arrange shelter."

**~*~On the Campaign Bus…Some weeks later~*~**

Toby looked across the aisle - Donna has just finished briefing Josh on the next stop on the campaign trail and lets her fatigue overcome her… she curls into him, lets her head rest against his shoulder and unthinkingly rests her hand on the inside of his thigh… right up against his groin.

Josh – equally unthinkingly, wraps his arm around Donna, and holding her closely to him, slides his arm inside of her coat and cups her breast with his hand.

Pete launches out…


End file.
